Browse Storage
The first place to start finding media in Nara is via the Browse Storage mode. You can find this option on the left side of your user interface.
This feature is controlled by the system administrator - if you do not see this option or it is greyed out, please contact your system administrator.
Once you have this mode selected you can browse media across any of the storage available to you in Nara.
Storage Navigator
When Browse Storage mode is active, the top part of the middle panel will show the storage navigator.
Clicking on the Volume selector button at the top left corner of the storage navigator will give you a drop-down list of all the volumes that you have permission to access:
These volumes are configured by your system administrator - if you do not see the correct volumes, please contact your system administrator.
Once you have selected the media volume, you will then have the ability to browse it's folder structure. Nara's navigator works very similarly to any other column-based file browser - clicking on a folder will show its contents in the next column to the right:
Each folder in the selected path is highlighted in blue. Horizontal and vertical scroll bars allow you to move the view around if there are more folders or columns than will fit on the screen. Note that you can also drag the lower edge of the navigation window to expand it downwards.
Column Filter Button
If there are many items in the current column you can enable a text filter by clicking on the 'F' button at the top of the column. The 'F' will turn red showing you that the filter is enabled and open a text box. Only items with text matching what you type into the filter box will be shown, as in the example below (note that the text-matching is not case sensitive):
To clear the filter, click on the red 'F' button to toggle it off. The text-match field will disappear.
Path Button
At the top of the navigator is a long button which contains the complete path from the root of the volume to the current folder. If you click on this button you will see a drop-down of all the intermediate folder levels - click on them to navigate back up to a specific sub-folder level:
Go to Folder
If you know the folder or directory you want to browse, you can enter it's path diferectly by clicking on the Go to a directory button at the right-hand end of the top bar:
This will bring up an entry box showing the entire path to the current folder - edit this path or type in a completely different path to jump directly to the point where you want to browse for media, then click on the Go button in the pop-up box.
Volume Index Status
Nara has a powerful media index which stores all the metadata for your media. The status of the index for the current volume is indicated by the star button to the right of the long path button:
Index OK
Index not available
The Nara index is an option. Please contact your system administrator if you think it should be available but does not appear to be working.
Hiding the Storage Navigator
Once you have navigated to the folder you are intereseted in, you can hide the Storage Navigator (upper part of the browser) by clicking on the Show/hide browser toggle button - the icon is grey when the Storage Navigator is hidden.
Hiding the upper panel gives more space for the thumbnails or column view.
Current Folder
The current folder is the one at the end of the path shown in the path button, or the right-most blue-highlighted folder in the navigator columns.
Media files in the current folder are shown either as a grid of thumbnails or as a vertical list in the media browser window directly below the navigator.
The current folder can be added to the currently active project providing a quick way to group together media related to a specific project. To add the current folder to a project, first make sure that the correct project is currently active (the project will be highlighted with a grey background in the project list) and then click on the '+' button next to the project name:
A pop-up box will ask you to provide a name for the folder and show you its path:
Click on the Ok button to confirm or Cancel if you decide not to add the folder. Note that folders can easily be removed from the list in the project - see the Project Folders section for more details.
Filter Button
If you only want to show media files which contain specific text in their name, click on the Filter by name button which can be found in the group of buttons at the right-hand side of the bar at the top of the media browser grid/list view:
When you enable the filter button a box will pop up allowing you to enter a text string to filter by - only files with names which contain the text will be shown in the browser window. Note that the text filter is not case sensitive.
Refresh Button
Clicking on this button (curled arrow) will reload the thumbnails for the current folder. This is useful if the folder contents have changed while you have been viewing the folder and they may not yet have automatically updated.
Descend Folders
By default, the browser view only displays thumbnails for media files located directly within the selected folder - it won't show you any of the media files in sub-folders. In order to see thumbnails for All files in the current folder and all the subfolder levels below this point you need to enable the Descend button located in the group of buttons at the right-hand side of the media browser top bar:
If you enable the descend option at a high level in your folder structure, there may be a huge number of media files to display. Although Nara can handle a great number of thumnails it may take a while for them to appear if you are browsing an un-indexed storage volume.
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